Birds and Blood and Balconies
by LoquaciousGirl
Summary: They’re just boys trying to be men, forced to grow up and kill and fight and scream for a happy ending that they might not live to see.


**Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all.**

Remus stood in the balcony and watched as the sky turned pink.

The doors of chipped black paint were flung wide open, letting cool air enter the suffocating house, trying to help it live again. It spread through the home futilely, the creaking floors and poorly painted walls refused to breathe, instead choosing to drown in the overpowering smell of fear and lies.

Remus turned away from the sky and took in the sight of his and Sirius' bedroom, the bloodied shirts thrown to the floor, ripped jeans, firewhiskey stains on the bed – _it had caused a small fire when it spilled over the sheets and Sirius drank it even more after that, hoping flames would erupt in his throat and spread straight to his heart._

He'd told him that once, stumbling and slurring and falling, before Remus caught him once again.

A bird sang its sweet song somewhere in the distance, and Remus found he couldn't gaze at his untidy bedroom any longer. Instead he turned back to the sky, pink with puffed clouds like cotton candy. It said that tonight was calmness and peaceful serenity, but Remus knew it was anything but. He stared at his socks, counted the holes, and wished he couldn't compare them to his life. It was sickening, and he looked at the sky once again, the only thing that offered peace.

There was a deafening crack from behind him, so loud and almost like a muggle gunshot, but Remus barely flinched. He kept his gold eyes carefully trained on the sky above him, on the cotton candy clouds meshing together and becoming one. He could hear some shuffling behind him, and then the creak of someone landing on their old, second-hand, bed.

"How many this time, Prongs?" Remus asked solemnly, hands curling around the bars on the balcony that kept him from tipping over the edge.

James appeared suddenly on the balcony with Remus, who finally took his eyes off the sky to look at him. James' hair was in disarray as always, glasses slipping down his slightly-too-long nose, and hazel eyes shining brightly with suppressed emotions, half hidden by the filthy lenses.

"Just one," he whispered, and his hands shook as he grasped his wand tightly, "Just one. Sirius is there, you know."

James' thumb jerked to the mattress where the heavily breathing Sirius lied, and Remus looked at him. Sirius was mangled and covered in blood, his eyes wide and staring at the ceiling unseeingly. He was trembling, with his leg bent at an odd angle and a gash on his cheek; Remus looked at him and thought he was beautiful.

"Take care of him," James murmured unnecessarily, Remus always did. James stared for a moment at Remus, arm twitching as if he wanted to grab him and pull him into a prolonged hug – but then he just sighed and apparated away with a final crack.

Remus walked over and sat beside Sirius on the sinking mattress and stained sheets. He fished his wand out of his pocket and began to heal the wounds that pierced Sirius' flesh. His pale gray eyes that usually shone with so much light were dull as they stared at the ceiling, unmoving, as though frozen. Blank and guarded. Remus sighed as he healed the cuts, as he watched some of the blood that was beginning to ooze out of the injuries sink back into the tanned skin.

The silence seemed to stretch on for centuries. For all that time, Remus could only hear the bird still singing so far away, and the unsettling sounds of Sirius' ragged and uneven breathing. He closed his eyes, as if that would help him block it out. It only intensified.

"I've got Dorcas Meadowes' blood on my hands, Remus," Sirius croaked, finally. Remus' eyes fluttered open and he touched the gash on Sirius' cheek with gentle fingers. When he looked down, he saw Sirius' hands, caked with dried blood.

"I told her a joke," Sirius whispered, his light eyes now glittering oddly, "Do you remember, Moony, the one about the goblin and the hag? She was bleeding Remus, so much and I don't know why, I had just run in to her – and we were away from the Death Eaters for a moment but I knew they were going to barge in – I could hear them and people screaming and screaming and screaming and I just wanted to tell someone that joke. And she was panting and oh, I've never seen someone losing that much blood, and I told her that joke – I told her that joke right before _they_ came in and in the next second – everything was green and scarlet and she-she…But I told her that joke, Moony. I told her that joke and she laughed. She died laughing."

_--_

_There was a pool of dark blood on the otherwise pristine white floor, tainting it with the scarlet stories of sickness and suffering, trailing over to the lifeless body of Dorcas Meadowes. _

_Sirius clung to her tightly, as if afraid to let go, his warm breath puffing on her cold neck; he was sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. He felt the woman's blood soak his fingers and could hear the screams of his fellow order members echoing in his ears. Those screams, those screams that had long since stopped but would live in his memories forever. Mostly though, he heard that laugh, that quiet feminine laugh, and then he saw her _drop…

_Someone sat down next to him._

"_Sirius," his best friends' voice floated into his ears as if from another world, "Padfoot, come on. The Death Eaters are gone. She - she's dead, Sirius. Come on. Come on, oh, look at you, Sirius. You're a mess. You need to go to – I'll get you to the Hospital Wing and – I mean, I mean, St. Mungo's"-_

_Sirius stood up abruptly, wobbling slightly and James grabbed his shoulder to steady him. Sirius stared at James with large eyes, and James stared back, and for a few moments they just stood there. _

_And then Sirius collapsed, clutching at James' shirt as so not to fall._

"_James," he whispered miserably, "There's no Hospital Wing, James. We're not at Hogwarts anymore, Prongs, can't you see? This is not…this is not Hogwarts, James, it's not Hogwarts…"_

_He shoved his face in the crook of James shoulder, and James swallowed as he felt Sirius shake._

"_Sirius," he forced his voice to remain steady, fighting down the lump in his throat, "Sirius, what's wrong with you? You barely knew Dorcas, so many others have been lost, why…"_

_Sirius shuddered and let out a choked sob, gripping James' shirt in between his bloody fingers. _

"_I'm – I'm not ready for this, James," he gasped into James' neck, "I'm not ready for all this…killing, and screaming, and and, I don't want this James. I don't think I could handle it if one of you - oh god. It was okay at Hogwarts. Can't we go back to Hogwarts?"_

_Sirius left his hiding pace from in between James' neck and shoulder but did not let go of his shirt. James stared at him with understanding eyes. Sirius stared back into them, dark brown and flecked with bits of green –those eyes would've been like the earth, like Sirius' world, if only they included the scarlet of blood. They said, __**I want to go back too, Padfoot, I want to play pranks and kiss Lily and run around with Moony in the Shrieking Shack again, too,**_ but we can't._ And Sirius sighed, looking down to stare at the blood pooling at his feet._

_James noticed it too._

"_Sirius, we need to get you to St. Mungo's."_

_Sirius let go of James' shirt and stumbled back before James grasped his arm._

"_No," he said desperately, "No James, I'm sorry. Please. I don't want to go to St. Mungo's, Remus knows how to fix me up."_

"_Padfoot"-_

"_I just want to go home to Moony. Please, I just want to go home to Moony." _

_James sighed, wrapping his arms around Sirius and letting his messy dark hair fall into his almost-earth-like eyes. _

"_Okay," he relented, tightening his hold on Sirius' arm as he prepared for Side-Along-Apparition, "Okay, I'll take you home to Moony."_

_--_

Sirius pushed himself into a sitting position and watched Remus, watched the light breeze caress his sandy hair, watched him clench his shirt with tense fingers, watched as he leaned in to the side of Sirius face.

Remus' long lashes flickered over Sirius' cheeks as he leaned in close. Brilliant gold eyes, framed by long dark lashes, set their sights on the deep gash on Sirius' face, no longer bleeding. He kissed it, red and mottled, and Sirius trembled. He turned his face so he could look into Remus' eyes; so he could see the emotions shining in them, love and affection and so much, so much fear. Remus placed a hand on Sirius' knee, the other tangled in his ebony locks as he rubbed the boys' scalp with soothing fingers. He kissed the patch of freckles by his ear and Sirius let his eyes shut.

"Moony"-

"Shh."

Remus leant in and pressed their lips together, finally, and then they were kissing, ever so gently. The balcony doors were still wide open and they kissed as the sky got darker and darker, lashes brushing against each other and Sirius' bloody hand wrapped around Remus' wrist.

They're just boys trying to be men, forced to grow up and kill and fight and scream for a happy ending that they might not live to see.

After what seemed like years, or maybe decades, or even centuries, they pulled apart and let their foreheads rest against each others'.

"Oh, Moony," Sirius whispered, still close enough that his breath ghosts over Remus' lips, "Do you think we'll get through this?"

Remus laced their fingers together, pressing another chaste kiss to Sirius lips.

"I don't know, Sirius," he replied, as always, so honest that it was painful, "I don't know." He stared at their intertwined fingers and thought, _even if we don't get through it, at least we've got this for today._

Out in the distance, the now forgotten bird still sang.


End file.
